The elegant Christopher Glamorgan has tagged me to blog about my first political memory.
I am, of course, very old indeed, but I was nevertheless surprised to realise that it was the events of 1963: the death of Hugh Gaitskell, followed by the Profumo affair, the resignation of Harold Macmillan and the subsequent turmoil within the Conservative party that culminated in the ill-fated premiership of Sir Alec Douglas-Home.
1963 was an astonishing year. It was the year the Beatles had their first No. 1 hit, From Me to You. It was, in many senses, the first year of the modern era; until then, everything had been post-war and black-and-white. Now it was all colour.
It was, in social terms, a revolutionary year. Not without reason did Philip Larkin write:
Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(which was rather late for me) -
Between the end of the "Chatterley" ban
And the Beatles' first LP
1963 was, in short, the year the Swinging Sixties began. So even I, an eleven year-old kid, knew that Sir Alec, a decent old gent who had accompanied Chamberlain to Munich, wasn’t going to cut the mustard with the electorate in the brave new Merseybeat world. Harold Wilson, a prototype Tony Blair - all gimmicks (pipe, Gannex mac) and catchphrases (“white heat of technology”, “thirteen years of Tory misrule”, “one hundred days of dynamic action”) - was going to mince him.
Actually, he didn’t. Labour got in with an overall majority of just six the following year. But Wilson’s victory over Home was just as much a watershed as the Beatles’ first TV appearance on Granada’s People and Places (which I am proud to say I witnessed). It changed things. Just as, in 1979, the election of Mrs Thatcher’s Conservatives changed things again.
1963 certainly changed things for me; it was the year I decided I wanted to be an MP. I should have been soundly thrashed.
I now tag Oscar, Ian Lindley, Monkey with a Blue Rosette, Nadine Dorries, Tomos Livingstone and Tom Bodden.
I am, of course, very old indeed, but I was nevertheless surprised to realise that it was the events of 1963: the death of Hugh Gaitskell, followed by the Profumo affair, the resignation of Harold Macmillan and the subsequent turmoil within the Conservative party that culminated in the ill-fated premiership of Sir Alec Douglas-Home.
1963 was an astonishing year. It was the year the Beatles had their first No. 1 hit, From Me to You. It was, in many senses, the first year of the modern era; until then, everything had been post-war and black-and-white. Now it was all colour.
It was, in social terms, a revolutionary year. Not without reason did Philip Larkin write:
Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(which was rather late for me) -
Between the end of the "Chatterley" ban
And the Beatles' first LP
1963 was, in short, the year the Swinging Sixties began. So even I, an eleven year-old kid, knew that Sir Alec, a decent old gent who had accompanied Chamberlain to Munich, wasn’t going to cut the mustard with the electorate in the brave new Merseybeat world. Harold Wilson, a prototype Tony Blair - all gimmicks (pipe, Gannex mac) and catchphrases (“white heat of technology”, “thirteen years of Tory misrule”, “one hundred days of dynamic action”) - was going to mince him.
Actually, he didn’t. Labour got in with an overall majority of just six the following year. But Wilson’s victory over Home was just as much a watershed as the Beatles’ first TV appearance on Granada’s People and Places (which I am proud to say I witnessed). It changed things. Just as, in 1979, the election of Mrs Thatcher’s Conservatives changed things again.
1963 certainly changed things for me; it was the year I decided I wanted to be an MP. I should have been soundly thrashed.
I now tag Oscar, Ian Lindley, Monkey with a Blue Rosette, Nadine Dorries, Tomos Livingstone and Tom Bodden.
3 comments:
Thanks for that. There's something for everyone in that memory :>D
You don't look that old in your picture. *grins*
Ah, but you should see the picture in the attic.
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